Morse Secure Messenger vs hellotern
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Morse Secure Messenger
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Morse is an anonymous messenger that lets you communicate without sharing your phone number. 【Accounts & Privacy】 • Create an account with Sign in with Apple • Use a user ID (@) or anonymous ID • Restore your account using a recovery code • Store up to 2 accounts for free on one device 【Secure Messaging】 • End-to-end encryption (E2EE) • Lock the app with Face ID or PIN • Private one-to-one conversations 【Chat Features】 • Group chats • Channels and discussions • Voice and video messages • Message synchronization across devices • Read receipts and notifications 【Translation】 • Automatic translation for multilingual conversations • Communicate easily with users around the world Morse is designed for people who value privacy, security, and seamless communication.
hellotern
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Tern is a private messenger for the people you actually talk to: end-to-end encrypted rooms, voice and video calls, and small communities, with the intelligence running on your phone, inside the encryption, instead of on a server that reads along. NO ACCOUNT, NO PHONE NUMBER Open Tern, pick a name, create a room. Share its invite code or link and the people you invite are in. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to verify, nothing to sell. ENCRYPTED END TO END, INCLUDING CALLS Messages, photos, voice notes and files are sealed on your device with modern group encryption (MLS) and stay sealed through the relay. Voice and video calls are encrypted frame by frame on your phone; the call server forwards packets it cannot decode. CALLS THAT HOLD UP One-to-one and group voice and video calls, ring everyone in a room at once, add someone mid-call, switch from voice to video, picture-in-picture, call history, and a Test call engine button in Call diagnostics for when a network is being difficult. ROOMS THAT FEEL LIKE HOME Channels and threads, pinned messages, polls and events, voice rooms you can hop in and out of, a Space Home that shows who is around, disappearing and view-once media, stickers you cut out yourself. INTELLIGENCE THAT STAYS ON YOUR PHONE Catch Me Up summarizes what you missed, in eight languages, from your own device. Search finds the message you half-remember. Voice notes are transcribed locally. No message leaves your phone to make any of this work, and everything AI-generated is labelled as such. CALM BY CONSTRUCTION No feed, no algorithmic ranking, no streaks, no autoplay. A chronological view is the only view. You are always caught up when the messages end. WHAT WE CANNOT SEE Tern's relay stores sealed envelopes it cannot open and forwards call packets it cannot decode. Notifications are content-free nudges. There are no ads, no trackers, and no third-party analytics in the app or on hellotern.com. Tern is free. Details of what the app can and cannot do, and how the encryption works, are at hellotern.com.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: hellotern at every 8 days against Morse Secure Messenger's monthly. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Morse Secure Messenger ships an update monthly, hellotern every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Morse Secure Messenger | hellotern |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 44 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yeongwon Kim | Saad Maan |
In-app purchases
Morse Secure Messenger
No in-app purchases
hellotern
No in-app purchases









